Clocks, Watches & Jewellery

Berlin online auction house Auctionata set a house record when this Chinese enamel, ivory-mounted and paste-set musical and automaton clock was sold for €2.8m (£2.15m), or €3.37m including premium.

The law on tiger jewellery is frequently flouted. Last week on eBay – a site that operates a ban on antique ivory – several items of big cat jewellery were on sale from UK vendors.

Two lantern clocks engraved with the signature ‘Thomas Loomes at ye mermayd in Lothbury’ recently appeared at auction within days of each other.

What is billed as “the best collection of English clocks that has come to the market in living memory” will go on sale later this year at Winchester dealers Carter Marsh.

COMMENT – Dealer Jamie Sinai believes modern functionality will eventually lead to a celebration of creativity and individual flair

A significant reward is being offered for the recovery of 125 watches stolen from an antiques store in north London.

The Art Loss Register has launched a database dedicated to stolen watches, one they say can help anyone buying, selling or providing loans against second-hand wristwatches.

After lengthy and complex negotiations, the paper archive of the Staffordshire pottery firm of Minton’s has been saved for the nation.

Sotheby’s Geneva managed to grab the headlines when the Henry Graves Supercomplication set a record for a timepiece at auction.

Collector Robin Pinchbeck had never bought a clock before, but when he set his sights on the George I walnut-cased astronomical longcase on offer at Mitchells (17.5% buyer’s premium) of Cockermouth on September 11-12 he knew he simply had to have it.

This silver and labradorite floral necklace designed by Georg Jensen c.1915 sold for $17,000 (£10,970) at a recent auction held by Skinner of Boston.

Bonhams of Bond Street are to sell what is perhaps the most significant collection of cameos and intaglios seen on the market for decades.

Details have emerged of a theft of a significant collection of British pocket watches from a property in London earlier this year.

For some years now, Far Eastern buyers have been demonstrating their fascination with so-called ‘sing-songs’ – the elaborate 18th century automaton table clocks made for the Chinese market by paying ever-increasing sums to secure them.

The most historically interesting entry in Bonhams’ clock sale held in their New Bond Street rooms came from the ten-lot section devoted to marine chronometers.

A strong selection of Tudric (pewter) and Cymric (silver) creations by Archibald Knox for Liberty & Co was the focus of keen bidding at Bonhams’ decorative arts from 1860 sale in New Bond Street.

Martel Maides of St Peter Port, Guernsey offered a single-strand pearl necklace for sale with a £1500-2000 estimate on the assumption they were natural saltwater pearls – the highest bidder reserving the right to send them for laboratory testing prior to settling the bill.

Despite countless offers to leave France, Suzanne Belperron (1900-83) remained in German-occupied Paris throughout the Second World War – a jewellery maker and a Resistance fighter.

Was this the ring of the Tiger of Mysore, taken from his body when he was killed in battle?

After seven years together, Ben Wright and Jonathan Carter of Gloucestershire-based Carter Wright Fine & Interesting Clocks have decided to go their separate ways after an amicable split.